Bucklin, James W; 1905 Bio, Mesa County, Colorado
http://files.usgwarchives.net/co/mesa/bios/bucklnjw.txt
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Donated April 2001
Transcribed by Judy Crook from the book:
Progressive Men of Western Colorado
Published 1905, A.W. Bowen & Co., Chicago, Ill.
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Hon. James W. Bucklin
A renowned and active tribune of the people, whose life has been
stormy and full of contests because of his ardent advocacy of their
interests in every forum wherein public opinion is made or directed,
Hon. James W. Bucklin, of Grand Junction, one of the leaders of the bar
in the state, has won commanding prominence and influence throughout
Colorado and is widely and favorably known elsewhere in this country
and in portions of many others. He is a product of rural life, having
been born on a farm in Kane county, Illinois, his life beginning on
November 13, 1856. His parents were George and Arethusa (Winch)
Bucklin, the former a native of Vermont and the latter of New
Hampshire, both of English descent and belonging to families that have
been in the United States more than three hundred years, their American
progenitors having come to this country in early colonial times. Mr.
Bucklin's paternal grandfather and maternal great-grandfather were
Revolutionary soldiers. His father was a farmer and in the early
'fifties [sic] moved to Illinois, settling first in Kane county and
later in De Kalb, where he ended his days in 1875, his wife dying in
1868. Their son James was reared in that state and educated at the
district schools, finishing his scholastic training with a two-years
course at Wheaton College. In 1875 he entered the law department of
the State University of Michigan, and was graduated there in 1877
before he was twenty-one. He then came to Colorado and was admitted to
the bar at Denver, also before he reached his legal majority. At that
time what is now Mesa county was a part of the Ute Indian reservation,
and as it was to be opened to settlement at an early date, Mr. Bucklin,
after practicing three years at Denver, determined to locate in this
section. He proceeded as far as Gunnison, but owing to Indian
massacres and delay in opening the reservation, he remained there two
years practicing his profession. In the fall of 1881 the reservation
was opened and, with a party of friends, he was among the first to make
an effort to locate, following the Indians as they were removed by the
soldiers. They met Governor Crawford at Delta, where he had located a
townsite, but they persuaded him to join forces with them and move on
to the site of the present Grand Junction. The company which organized
this town comprised the Governor, Mr. Bucklin and Messrs. Mobley,
Warner, White and Rood. Mr. Bucklin is the only one of the number now
living. The next spring he located permanently here and has lived here
ever since. There were at the time of his arrival about sixty or
seventy persons living within the present county limits, and there was
not a frame building or floor or glass window in Grand Junction. On
February 28, 1882, he opened the first law office in what had been the
Ute reservation, and soon afterward put up a log building on Main
Street which he used as an office for a number of years. Lumber then
sold at one hundred and fifty dollars per one thousand feet and no
frame buildings were possible. The nearest post-office and trading
post was Gunnison, one hundred and fifty miles away. The first post-
office name of Grand Junction was Ute, but that lasted only three
months, when the present name was adopted. A week after Mr. Bucklin's
arrival a stage line was established between Gunnison and this point.
On this he made a trip to Gunnison which kept him nine days on the road
and he was obliged to walk part of the way. He was the bearer of a
package of money to Montrose for the establishment of the First
National Bank there as a branch of the San Miguel Bank of Gunnison.
The package was sewed in his overcoat, and he afterward learned that it
contained ten thousand dollars. His first law case in his new home was
conducting the defense of an Indian arrested for stealing blankets. He
volunteered his services and cleared his client. In laying out the
town a liberal policy was pursued, lots being reserved for churches,
schools, public parks and public buildings, while every settler who was
willing to build a home for himself had a lot given to him for the
purpose. In the nature of the case a man as liberally endowed by
nature and as ripened by study as Mr. Bucklin was in demand for public
service. In the fall of 1884 he was the Republican candidate for the
legislature from Gunnison, Pitkin, Montrose, Delta and Mesa counties
and carried all of them. One of his principal acts in the ensuing
session was the introduction of a bill to secure an appropriation of
forty thousand dollars for the construction of a bridge over the
Gunnison at Grand Junction, the provision being to take the money out
of a government fund for public improvements which seems to have been
overlooked and forgotten until recalled to notice by him. Another
measure which he introduced was for the establishment of a labor
bureau. This failed at the first session but was passed at the next,
and provided for the establishment of one of the first bureaus of the
kind formed in the United States. In the spring of 1886 he was elected
mayor of the town, and while in office secured the repeal of the poll
tax, and there has been none since. He also inaugurated the planting
of trees in the parks and throughout the city. For two years he was
county attorney and for one year city attorney. In the latter post he
revised the ordinances and established a system of city legislation
which has since been followed here, and has been copied by other cities
of this and other states. His legislative experience attracted his
attention to the subject of political economy, which he studied
thoroughly, making a specialty of the single tax theory, which he
studied for the purpose of refuting the arguments of Henry George: but
his investigation of the subject convinced him that Mr. George was
right and, leaving his old party affiliation, he became an ardent
advocate of that theory, organizing a movement in Mesa county for
securing its adoption. In 1896 he was elected to the legislature as
the advocate of this theory, and during the next few years he labored
arduously in both branches of the legislature to get his theory passed
into law, but through machinations of one kind or another his purpose
was defeated until 1901, when a bill for the purpose was passed.
Immediately afterward vicious attacks were made on it, an anti-Bucklin
League was organized, large sums of money were raised and a special
session of the legislature was called to repeal the law. The movement
failed, however, and in the fall of 1902 the question was submitted to
a vote of the people as an amendment to the constitution, and it was
defeated at the polls, although receiving a large vote and carrying
eight counties. Another bill of which he was the father was the public
utility bill, which aimed to give the people of different sections of
the state the right to acquire by purchase or condemnation water works,
gas and electric light plants, and similar utilities at the actual cost
of their construction. This measure was bitterly opposed by the
corporations and the contest became one of the most noted in the
history of the legislature. After the passage of this bill it was
stolen and recovered in time for the signatures of the presiding
officers only through his heroic efforts. The speaker of the house
signed it just one minute before the final adjournment. In the session
of 1899 he had a commission appointed to investigate for the benefit of
the state the tax system of Australia. Mr. Bucklin was made chairman
of the commission, and going to Australia made his investigation so
thorough and his report so masterful that in February, 1901, the matter
was taken up by congress and his report was printed in the
Congressional Record. In the trip to Australia and for the work of his
investigation he defrayed his own expenses, declining to be reimbursed
by the state. In the session of 1901 he also secured the passage of a
law reducing the rate of interest on state warrants from six to four
per cent. In all his legislative experience he has been an active,
working, fighting member, serving on important committees and as
chairman of some. He is an ardent advocate of municipal ownership, and
the law firm of Bucklin, Staley & Safley, of which he is the head, has
carried on legal and political warfare for thirteen years to secure the
application of such ideas to the affairs of Grand Junction, finally
resulting in a fine water-works plant owned and managed most
successfully by the city. As a lawyer he has been very successful,
building up a large and representative practice. He has been married
twice, first in 1884, to Miss Margie Champion, a native of England, who
came to America with her parents when she was two years old. She died
in March 1885, and on January 1, 1895, he married a second wife, Miss
Mary Lapham, a native of Canada but reared and educated in Colorado,
her parents being among the pioneers of Mesa county. They have two
children, James W., Jr. and Louis Lapham. Mr. Bucklin is a member of
the Masonic order, holding the rank of past master in his lodge, and
being also a Knight Templar. He has been an active member of the
Methodist Episcopal church from his boyhood. He was one of the
founders of the church at Grand Junction and helped to organize the
Sunday schools at that place and Gunnison. He also read the first
funeral service at Grand Junction. In business he has been very
successful, acquiring considerable property and adding much by his
improvements to the value and beauty of the town.
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